


The Resolution

by emwebb17



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emwebb17/pseuds/emwebb17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What I would do to make S10 suck a little less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Resolution

Cas sat on the trunk of his jalopy, waiting for the tank to fill.  He didn’t have any money and he felt guilty for using the fake credit card the Winchesters had given him when he’d been human, but he needed the fuel.

_He needed the fuel._

He smiled sadly at the thought.  This tank of gas would probably outlast what was left of his stolen grace.  He had a vague idea of what would happen when the end came.  As the last bit of grace dwindled the radiation pressure would increase until at last it collapsed and created a shockwave that was not dissimilar to a supernova produced by a dying star.  What he didn’t know is if it would be relatively isolated to his own vessel, or if it would create a significant impact zone.  That uncertainty was why he was currently at a rundown gas station in the middle of North Dakota.  He still wanted to drive a couple of more hours away before it happened.  Most humans were well away from what he considered might be the potential blast radius, but he also wanted to spare as many cows as possible.

He also was unsure of what would happen to him when he died.  It was the greatest irony of all—humans struggled their whole lives with faith and their beliefs and fear of what happened after death, and angels had the great privilege of being absolutely certain God existed.  And yet…he was just as ignorant of what happened in the end as any human.  His father had certainly brought him back more times than he deserved, so maybe now he would be allowed to rest in the peaceful nothingness of nonexistence.

Cas’ brow crinkled in thought.  Of course, if he didn’t exist, how would he know if he was enjoying the peaceful nothingness?

His body tensed as he felt something shifting in the ether—that world between worlds that wasn’t reality or an alternate to one.  It was the place where anti-matter existed and through which angels made their flight paths.  But no angels had wings anymore.

The car shifted in conjunction with the loud thump of heavy boots hitting metal.  Cas didn’t know if he should feel sad, afraid, resigned, or just plain pissed off.  He turned to look over his shoulder and saw Dean standing on the roof of his car, arms crossed, amused smile twisting his lips, eyes black as pitch.

“Heya, buddy.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said, hearing in his own voice that anger was the prevailing emotion.

Dean stepped down onto the trunk and then walked by Cas and hopped onto the ground.

“So, I just came from visiting good ol' Sammy.”

“Is he still alive?” Cas asked, dryly, numbly.

Dean let out a soft scoffing laugh.  “Is he still breathing and walking around?  Yeah.  But alive?”  Dean shrugged.  “Kid’s messed up.  And not because of me.  He has a darkness in him that was there long before I ever embraced my own.”

Cas sighed.  “I see being a demon has brought out your poetical side.”

Dean scowled.  “I don’t have a ‘poetical’ side.”

“What do you want, Dean?”

Dean’s face became a mask of mock hurt and surprise.  “Well, I just heard from Sam that you weren’t doing so well.  Don’t _friends_ come to each other in their time of need?”

Cas allowed his eyes to flick to Dean, and then away.  He wondered if he could keep him talking for another couple of hours—and then ask for a hug.  He wouldn’t be able to save Dean or himself, but he’d be able to stop Dean from hurting anyone else.  He knew what the new demon had been up to.  The supernatural world had been abuzz with the news of a truly psychotic new demon on the loose—one who was quick to anger and even quicker to violence.

“I don’t need anything, Dean.  Except to be left alone.”

“Well, that’s not true is it?  You need a new battery.  And soon based on the look of you.  Why don’t you just slice and dice one of the angels that worked for Meta-douche and power up?”

“Because…that would be wrong.”

Dean let out a cruel laugh that made Cas wince.

“Wrong?  Cas, buddy, you are nine circles deep in all the wrong you’ve done.”

“I know,” Cas said through gritted teeth.  “And this is a way to make sure I don’t continue to do more wrong.”

“Oh, come on.  You already did it once.  Spilled milk.  Just suck it up and…suck it up,” the demon chuckled.

“No.  What I did was…I’m not sure there even is a greater sin an angel could commit.”  Cas swallowed.  “Except perhaps to lose faith in God.”  Cas dropped his head and stared at his hands where they hung limply from his knees.  “I did something despicable and unforgivable, but I didn’t do it for myself.  I did it for—”

Cas cut off abruptly.  It didn’t matter why he had done it anymore because he had still failed.

“You did it for me,” Dean said softly.

Cas looked up, baited by the soft, gruff voice that sounded like the real Dean.  But this Dean was grinning gleefully.

“Well, I’m touched, buddy.  Really.  The most despicable sin you can think of you committed on my behalf.  That’s—it’s an honor, really.”

Cas looked away, anger washing through him again.  Anger at himself mostly, but a small part of it for Dean—Dean who had gone off half-cocked and gotten the Mark of Cain.  Dean who had decided to martyr himself since he was old enough to understand the concept.  Dean who had become so twisted so easily as a demon because he’d had no belief in or love for himself.  He hated that part of Dean that had hated himself.  For someone so smart, he really had been just a dumb human in the end.

“So, here’s the thing, _pal_.”  Cas flinched when the demon put a hand on his shoulder.  “I owe you.  I really do because you put up with a lot of crap from me and my brother for years now.  And it would really be a dick move to just let you mope and fizzle out like some kind of Sylvia Plath sob story.  I gotcha a little something.”

Cas felt something tugged through the ether, and then a body landed in the dirt in front of him.  It was a female vessel with dark hair wearing a pantsuit.  She turned over and looked up, her eyes filled with righteous anger, blood spilling from a split lip.

“Hannah!”

Cas jumped off the car, but Dean held him back with hand.

“Found one for ya, Cas.  So, drink up.  Or whatever.”

Cas shrugged off Dean’s hand and knelt beside Hannah.  “Are you alright?” he asked, concern tightening his voice.

She nodded and wiped the blood from her chin with the back of her wrist.

“I’m fine.  He tricked us.  He said he needed help saving you.  That he was looking for a cure to his…condition.”

She spat the last word out with so much disdain Cas felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.  Then Cas processed her entire sentence.

“Wait, us?  How many did—”

“Enough with the flirting, Cas,” Dean said, yanking him away.  Cas’ eyes went wide when he saw the angel blade in Dean’s hand.  He lunged forward to prevent Dean from slashing Hannah’s throat.  In his weakened condition, Dean shook him off like he was swatting a fly.  Cas hit the trunk of the car and pain exploded from his vessel’s side near the kidneys.  He gasped for air and looked to where Dean was hovering over Hannah.  She spit at him.

“You foul being.  You’re not one of God’s creations.  You’re not even one of Lucifer’s.  You’re an abomination to _existence_ itself.  Your lies—”

“What lies?” Dean snarled, grabbing Hannah by the hair and making her gasp with pain.

He must have done something to her.  She wasn’t fighting back—seemed unable to.  Cas struggled to move closer.

“I said I needed your help to save Cas.  Your mojo will do that.  I said I needed help finding a cure for my condition.  It’s not my fault you didn’t understand that the condition I need cured is that pesky bit of humanity still hanging around.”

“You’re not even a monster, you’re just a void,” Hannah said with a fierce though calm expression on her face.  “Even Azazel had more substance than you.”

Cas saw Dean’s arm twitch at the name.  He face was a mask of rage and hatred.  He raised the arm with the angel blade.  Cas lunged forward and rather than trying to grab Dean’s arm, which he knew he wasn’t strong enough to stop, he put himself in between Dean and Hannah.  Dean pulled up short, but just barely.  Cas had felt the tip of the blade against his vessel’s skin.

“Dammit, Cas.  Stop being so ungrateful.”

“Dean, please…” Cas felt that odd human sensation of embarrassment as his voice was thick with unshed tears and displaying no anger or disgust, but only sadness and pleading.  “Please, don’t do this.”

“Cas.  I’m not going to let you die.  Not when I can do something about it.  Not when I still have use for you.”

Cas shuddered at the thought of what a demon might need an angel to do for him that he couldn’t do himself.  He also knew that talking Dean out of “saving his life” was not the way to go at the moment.

“Okay, Dean.  Okay.  But we can do this another way.  Hannah is innocent.  It’s Metatron.  We both hate him, right?  We can go to Heaven.  Or send Hannah to get him.  He’s still alive.  We didn’t kill him, we imprisoned him.”

“Oh because angel prison always turns out so well,” Dean sneered.

“Well in this case it did.  He’s alive.  And he has his grace.  We’ll bring him to you and I’ll gladly you let you slit his throat.  And I’ll take his grace.”

“Castiel,” Hannah hissed softly.

Cas willed her to shut up and understand that he was just talking Dean down.  He might go so far as to let Dean kill the traitor, but he wouldn’t take his grace.

Dean looked at him for a moment, and then he shoved him out of the way and grabbed Hannah again.  Cas grabbed weakly onto his arm.

“Dean, please!  Please!  If you ever had any sense of friendship or brotherhood with me.  If you ever cared about me at all…please, _don’t do this_.”

Cas held on to Dean’s arm for Hannah’s dear life.  Dean looked back at him, the clear green looking so much like the man he had come to love above humanity itself—perhaps a sin just as bad as Lucifer’s refusal to love humanity at all.  Dean’s face actually softened.

“Of course I cared about you, Cas.”

Cas relaxed a little, a malicious bit of hope infusing his dying soul.

“That’s why I’m doing this.”

He shook Cas off and slashed his other arm through the air.  Cas screamed, but could do nothing as Hannah’s throat was split ear to ear.  Her grace churned and glowed in the wound while her human vessel struggled with the impossible task of trying to live through what should have killed it.  Cas crawled close and took Hannah’s hand.  She looked up at him, mouth wide open as she was unable to speak or do more than twitch in excruciating pain.  She looked afraid.

Cas turned hard, hateful eyes on Dean.  He was impassive and unmoved by Cas’ display.

“Go on,” Dean said.

“Just because you killed her doesn’t mean I will degrade her.”

Dean’s mouth twitched up into a spiteful smile.  “If not her, then someone else.  I got a whole line of angels I can do this to.  One after the other.  A dozen, a hundred, a thousand.  Really no skin off my nose.  In fact, it’ll probably be fun.”

Cas felt like something had been ripped from him—what he had left to give he didn’t know—but it was painful and brutal and he knew he would never get it back.  He looked down at Hannah.  Her eyes were wet with tears, but she gave him a little nod of her head.  Cas shook his head.

“No,” he whispered.

Hannah gave a weak squeeze of his hand.  She slowly stopped fighting for life and went still.  She met his eyes with firm resolution, and gave his hand a squeeze again.  She would sacrifice herself for her brethren.  They both knew that the demon standing near them would not stop until he got what he wanted.

Cas wanted to scream and rail against the god that had ever allowed their lives to come to this point.  If he ever came face to face with his father, he would give new meaning to the word patricide.

A cold, soul-crushing despair slowly enveloped him like ice water as he leaned closer and gently drew Hannah’s grace from her vessel and into his.  It was instantaneous.  He was strong, powered up, and capable of repressing all those overwhelming emotions again.  Hannah’s vessel’s dull, lifeless eyes stared up at him.

“There.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Dean asked with undisguised humor.

Cas rose slowly to his feet and turned to look Dean in the eye.  The demon smirked at him.

“Feeling better, Cas?”

“You wanted a powered up angel…you got one.”

Cas raised a hand and blasted Dean with enough smiting energy that the demon went flying through air and landed hard on the ground.  Half of his face and chest were burned off.  Cas approached him detachedly, unmoved by the charred remains of the once handsome visage of Dean’s body.  Dean laughed, his teeth shining white through the hole in his mouth and cheek.

“Alright, alright.  Point taken.  So, how about a little angel mojo to clear all this up, hmm?”

Dean laughed, and then coughed.  He started to sit up, but Cas put a foot on his chest—the ruined bloody part—and pushed him back onto the ground.  He knew the demon would not die from this, and he’d even be able to heal his body.  As angry and disgusted as he was, he wouldn’t cause Dean any permanent damage.  He crouched down beside him.

“Dean, I wonder if you’re familiar with your and your brother’s story.”

Dean stopped squirming around and looked sharply at Cas through his one good eye.

“Way more than I’d like to be.”

“Hmm, then I wonder why you think your tenure as a demon will be at all permanent.  The two of you have always overcome impossible odds and always come out on top.  Even I’ve helped out with that once or twice.”

“What’s your point, Cas,” Dean said through clenched teeth.

“My point,” Cas said blandly as he picked up a piece of charred skin from the ground and patted it back into place on Dean’s face, “is that we will find a way to save you.  We will cure you.  You will be human again.  You know deep down that it’s only a matter of time before that happens.”

“Not saying that I believe any of that bull, but so what?”

“Well, just think about what it will be like, being fully human again and having to live with the evil you’ve wrought on the world.  If I were you, I’d cut back just a little.  Cut your soon to be restored human self a little slack.  I understand that goes against a demon’s nature to care about the problems of a human, but it will still be _you_.  So, consider it self-preservation.”

“I’ll worry about that bridge if I have to cross it.”

“When, Dean.  When.”

Cas stood up, keeping his face stoic and demeanor calm.  He actually had no clue if he or Sam would ever be able to fix this.  But from the very small spark of concern in Dean’s eye—Cas knew that he believed it.  He turned and walked nonchalantly to his car.  The tank had finished filling and he removed the hose.  He slid into the driver’s seat and gave the petrified store attendant crouching at the windows with just his eyes showing a small salute with two fingers.  Then he drove out of the station and back onto the highway.  This time heading in the opposite direction of where he had been going before.  He had to make a stop in Lebanon.

**

Cas easily accessed the bunker—the Winchesters had really been lax about locking the doors and sealing the wards on their “impenetrable” fortress.  As he walked down the stairs he was surprised and concerned to see the library in disarray—chairs and lamps crashed on the floor, odd slender holes in the walls.

“Sam?”

Something crashed in another room, and then Sam appeared looking half alive with hollows under eyes so deep Cas wondered if he’d slept in months.

“Castiel?  Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Why are you here?  You made it pretty clear that you wanted nothing to do with me after I—well, after I—and that you just wanted to go die alone.”

“I had a run in with your brother.”

Sam smiled humorlessly.  “You too, huh,” he said as he looked at the chaos around them.

Cas looked around again too.  “Dean did this?”

“Yep.  Chased me through the halls with a freaking ax.”

Cas couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his lips.  “Like _The Shining_.”

Sam frowned at him.  “I liked it better when you didn’t know any pop culture references.”

Cas didn’t respond as he didn’t think there was a correct one.  Sam sighed.

“What do you want, Cas?”

“I’m here to help.”

“With what?”

“Saving Dean.”

Sam went very still, and then he walked closer.  “I thought you said that saving Dean wasn’t worth losing me.”

“It’s not.  We’re not going to do any of the blood magic or sadistic bargaining you attempted in the beginning.”

Sam’s jaw flexed as he swallowed.  Cas wasn’t as good at reading this Winchester, but he thought he detected shame and no small amount of fear.  Good.  Sam was not lost.

“But, Sam,” Cas started and waited for the man to look up and meet his eyes.  “Dean is…he’s crossed a line.  A lot of them.  Dean as he is now…cannot be suffered to live.”

“What are you saying?” Sam asked carefully.

“I’m saying that we will do everything in our power, without compromising ourselves, to save him.”

Sam nodded agreement.

“But.  If we can’t…you will have to…eliminate him.”

Sam’s eyes hardened.  “You mean kill him.”

Cas gave one nod.  Sam looked angry.  He looked betrayed.  And then, eventually, very slowly, he looked resigned.

“I know,” he said hoarsely.

Cas exhaled the breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding—he’d been in a human vessel too long if he was trying to breathe like them.  He gave Sam what he hoped was a commiserating grimace and turned to let him have some time alone as he came to terms with this new resolve.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam said bitterly.

Cas turned back to him.

“Why do I have to do it?  Why don’t _you_ kill him?”

Cas let his eyes drop to the floor.  “I can’t,” he said simply.  He raised his eyes to Sam’s and then turned partially away to gaze unseeingly across the room.  “I can’t kill Dean Winchester.”  Cas gave a shake of his head and started to walk away.  “I can’t.”


End file.
